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American Express: Financial Winner

NEW YORK (
TheStreet) --
American Express(AXP - Get Report) was the winner among major U.S. financial firms on Friday, with shares rising over 2% to close at $82.61.

The broad indices ended higher as investors sank their teeth into a positive indicator for continued economic recovery, with
United Parcel Service(UPS)reiterating its guidance for a 3% to 7% increase in earnings-per-share for 2013 over 2012.

But the market also reacted positively to another negative economic report supporting the case for no change in the
Federal Reserve's "QE3" stimulus policy, following the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Oct. 29-30.

Sentiment in October among consumers in the United States fell to its lowest level during 2013, showing the effect of the partial shutdown of the federal government and the debate in Washington over the national debt limit, which came to an end on Oct. 17.

The
Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on the index on consumer sentiment fell to 73.2 in October from 77.5 in September. The October reading was the lowest since December 2012 and came in below the consensus forecast of 75.0, among economists polled by
Thomson Reuters.

Data released by the Census Bureau on Friday also underlined the effect of the government shutdown fiasco. New orders for durable goods in September increased by $8.2 billion or 3.7% from the previous month to $233.4 billion.

But the increase was almost entirely driven by non-defense aircraft and parts orders. "Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 0.1 percent," the Census Bureau said. BMO Capital Markets chief economist Douglas Porter early on Friday wrote in a client note that he expected "core" capital goods orders to decline in September, because of "weaker business confidence due to the fiscal impasse."

Then again, the Census Bureau said that "excluding defense, new orders increased 3.2 percent." With the temporary agreement in Washington to raise the federal debt limit and continue the usual spending spree, there's plenty of hope that November "core" durable goods orders and defense orders will pick up nicely.

The continued uncertain direction of the flow of economic reports makes it appear likely that the FOMC next week will decide to have the Federal Reserve continue its $85 billion in monthly net purchases of long-term bonds, in attempt to hold long-term interest rates down. The bond purchases have continued at this level since September 2012.

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